


Kill Your Idols

by KLStarre



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Episode 80 Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 09:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21241880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre
Summary: He'd always known what he would have to do.(Or, a study of the history between Bev and his dad).





	Kill Your Idols

The earliest memory you have of your father is of silence. From years of living under the same roof, you can fill in what must have happened before it – you can fill in the yelling, the head shaking, the disappointed speech about how he knew you could do better.

But you were young, maybe three, maybe four, and so the only image that has stuck with you is him standing at the top of the stairs, looking down on you, looking sad. Looking sad in a way that felt like it was your fault, even though, as hard as you try, you’ve never been able to remember what it was you had done.

You don’t remember what happened afterwards, either, although you can assume that your mom made you sticky buns, because you were upset and that’s what she’s always done when you’re upset. You can assume they fought about it afterwards, your parents, because your father always said you wouldn’t learn your lesson if you got sticky buns as a reward for being in trouble. You can assume you didn’t cry. You think that, even then, you had learned not to.

∞

Years later, when you were maybe eight, maybe nine, you found your parents’ wedding photo album. You had been looking for any excuse not to do homework and had ended up with your mom’s feather duster, cleaning bookshelves that you couldn’t remember ever being touched. The feather duster was a relic – you had the broomba to do the cleaning, and a maid sometimes if your father met someone who needed work and a place to stay while they got their feet back under them. But your mom enjoyed using it and she had passed it onto you with a smile, assuming that you’d rather do your work than clean.

It was kind of calming, you thought, as you brushed it over a particularly thick book. The book was a soft green, with a gold leaf pattern down the spine, and it looked weathered in a way none of the others did. Looking over your shoulder to make sure you weren’t about to be caught, you put the feather duster under your arm and pulled it out from the shelf gingerly, turning it over to look at the front cover. There was a photo stuck to the leather, and it took you a moment before you recognized the halfling woman in a brown dress and a radiant smile as your mom and the halfling man with the ceremonial armor and gentle eyes as your father. They had their arms around each other, and there was an archway of leaves above them. The picture had caught one flower falling down towards them, frozen forever in a perfect moment.

You knew your parents loved each other, of course. They said it all the time. But you had never seen them like this.

You sat cross-legged in front of the bookshelf, worries of being caught long forgotten, feather-duster abandoned next to you, and opened the book gently onto your lap. The first picture was of your parents kissing. If it had been in person, you would have reacted with joking disgust, maybe even turned your face away. But for some reason, you find yourself staring at this picture, drinking in every detail of the two of them, of the guests, of the way everyone looked …happy. It must have been right before the War Against the Giants started, you realized, looking at faces of Green Knights you didn’t recognize as you turned the page. A different time.

Even as young as you were, you knew about the war. Everyone knew about the war.

“What are you looking at, son?” came from behind you, and you started at your father’s voice, shutting the book maybe more quickly than it deserved. You didn’t think you were doing anything wrong, but you still felt like you were in trouble. It was a hard feeling to shake.

“Nothing,” you said, twisting around to look him in the eyes. “I was just – cleaning. Helping mom.” You held the erstwhile forgotten feather-duster up.

He looked at the feather-duster for a second, and then the gold of the book must have caught his attention, because he looked at it over your head and smiled. “You found your mother’s and my wedding album?”

“Yes, sir,” you said, relaxing. You hadn’t even really realized you were tense. He sat next to you, also cross-legged, your legs pressed together. Usually he was at work, this time, but you didn’t ask why he’s home. You just opened the book again. It seemed like the right thing to do.

“I remember that.” Your father pointed to a picture on the random page you had opened to. It’s of your mom and another woman holding hands and twirling together, laughing. “That’s your mom’s best friend from school, Emma. She came all the way from Hillholm for our wedding.”

You didn’t ask why you’d never met Emma; you knew.

“She insisted on having the first dance, said she’d loved your mother before I ever met her. She was right, too, and I said so to anyone who questioned it. If not for that woman, I don’t know if your mother would have stayed around long enough to have you. She had a wild youth.” If it had been about anyone else, you knew your father would have disapproving. But talking about your mom, he just sounded wistful. It was hard to believe, your mom having a wild youth. What would she have done, skipped church? Gone a couple miles outside the city limits?

“Who’s that?” you dared to ask, pointing at an elven man standing side by side with your father in a different picture. He wore Green Knight armor, too, but not the ceremonial sort. He had the captain’s sigil on the clasp that held his cloak. The clasp that now your father wore. Your father laughed, and you leaned your head gently against his shoulder. It was soft, and warm, without cold plate covering it.

“That’s old Brodren Mordain. He retired at just the right time, too – right after the wedding, he passed the cloak off to me and vanished. I’ve heard from him maybe once since? He and his husband went to Gladeholme. The last letter I got, they seemed happy.” Once again, your father sounded wistful. You had never realized how soon after the marriage he had been made to go off to war.

There was a silence, and you curled up against him to fill it. He wrapped his arm around you to pull you close, and you breathed him in, suddenly trying your best not to cry. “Someday it’ll be you, Bev,” he said, and you still don’t know if he meant that someday it would be you getting married or someday it would be you taking up the captain’s cloak.

“Take care of yourself.” The implication was that someday he wouldn’t be there to take care of you. It hung heavy in the air as you sat there together, looking at pictures of a different time. Even after your mom came back into the room to check on your progress, and you all got distracted by making dinner together, it stayed at the back of your mind.

Take care of yourself.

∞

You know exactly how old you were when you finally joined the Green Teens. Not quite ten and a half, because the induction ceremony wasn’t set to take place until five months after your birthday. You had begged to be let in earlier, and your father had laughed, but said that it was important to join in a group. “Your group is who will have your back, always. Stay with them,” he said. You remember it word for word. And he had been right.

Already you’d known Erlin – had known Erlin as long as you’d been aware enough to know what ‘knowing’ meant – and so you stood beside him in front of the altar of Pelor. It was a small group, the year you were inducted. Your parents sat at the first pew, the Kindleafs beside them. Behind them you assumed were the parents of the other two kids being inducted with you. The girl stood to your right, managing to look determined and sincere even with pigtails. The boy had been on Erlin’s left.

Merrick High Hill stood in front of the four of you. That was why initiations happened on such a strict schedule. It was an honor to join the Green Teens, and so the high septon officiated, but he was a busy man.

He gave the usual speech. You had heard it a million times, had rehearsed the responses late into the night, and so you let yourself zone out as he spoke, making eye contact with your father and then looking away. His face was solemn, but you thought you had caught a hint of a smile. Beside you, Erlin pressed his shoulder against yours and it was all you could do not to grin in response. It was finally _happening_.

To the girl next to you, High Hill said, “Cran Fernmoore, do you swear to uphold the tenets of Pelor, to stand with the other Green Teens, to serve your king and fellow soldiers?”

She stood up even more straight, if that were possible, and said, proudly, “I do so swear to uphold the tenets of Pelor, to stand by my fellow Green Teens, and to serve my king and fellow soldiers.”

Were you imagining it, or did your father’s face tighten at the phrase ‘fellow soldiers’? It was impossible to tell.

“Beverly Toegold V, do you swear to uphold the tenets of Pelor, to stand with the other Green Teens, to serve your king and fellow soldiers?”

The response rushed out of you all in one breath. _This _was what you had been waiting for.

Beside you, Erlin made the same oath, delivering the response perfectly and then, next to him, the other boy (you learn his name is Derlin) stumbled over the words but, eventually, spoke the oath. You felt a warm glow inside as you looked out at your mother smiling at you, and linked hands with Erlin and Cran for the end of the ceremony. It felt like the beginning of something.

Afterwards, outside the church, your father pulled you aside before letting you run off with Erlin, Derlin, and Cran. “You did well,” he said, and then his face softened. “You’ll be an amazing Green Knight someday.”

Before you had time to think about it, you hugged him, tight.

∞

“Your dad’s scary, dude,” Erlin said, leaning back against his headboard. Sitting cross-legged on his bed across from him, you were offended, although you weren’t sure why. Both of you were thirteen and you had just witnessed your first execution. Your dad had been busy, afterward, and so Egwene had walked you home, but you hadn’t wanted to go back to your house. Even though you knew it had been what needed to be done, you were still upset, and didn’t know why. You didn’t want to be alone.

“He’s not! He’s just doing his job.” The image of his face as the sword fell played over and over in your mind. You had seen your father angry an uncountable number of times, and had seen him sad, too. Had seen him the day the new war had officially begun, and the exhaustion that he hadn’t been able to hide while he talked to you about duty. But you had never seen him like that.

“Whatever, man. It’s messed up. We’re, like, kids.” You knew Erlin well enough to know he didn’t really mean it. The word of his parents’ deaths had come three months previously, and you had talked then about how he didn’t know how to be a kid anymore. You hadn’t really understood what he had meant, even though you had tried your best. Now, you thought you understood.

“It’s a war. No one’s a kid. And it’s an honor to go, anyway.” There was a sadness as you said it, and it wouldn’t be until years later, pulling your friend back from beyond the edge of death, that you would realize why. Then, talking to Erlin, you were just aware of a pride in your father. Someday, that was going to be you.

“Well, we should be. I don’t care if it makes me a bad Green Teen or whatever, but watching your dad kill some guy isn’t an honor. I hear Egwene cry at night sometimes, you know.” He said it defiantly, as if daring her to come into his room and deny it.

You believed him. “Yeah, well. I’m not gonna cry about it. What would be the point?”

“Maybe you should,” Erlin said.

∞

Your look your father in the eyes, sword drawn. You know your duty. You’ve known it since you first got to the Fey Wild, and maybe before. You’ve known it since the first time you read the Green Teen Handbook straight through.

Kill your idols.


End file.
